Fecha de recepción: 21 febrero 2019 Fecha de aceptación: 3 noviembre 2019 Fecha de publicación: 9 febrero 2020 URL: https://oceanide.es/index.php/012020/article/view/23/168 Oceánide número 12, ISSN 1989-6328 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37668/oceanide.v12i.23

Dra. María Begoña Lasa Álvarez Universidade da Coruña, España ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8045-3557

Women Artists and Activism in Ellen Clayton's "English Female Artists" (1876)

Abstract In her biographical compilation English Female Artists (1876), Ellen Clayton documented the lives of many talented and hard-working women as a means of bringing to light and celebrating their role in the history of art. Moreover, she also explored these artists’ biographies in order to problematize more general issues, thus entering into one of the most significant initiatives of the period: the movement for women’s rights, with proposals including the improvement of women’s education, their access to art academies, and the amelioration of laws regarding marriage, family and employment. Of particular interest are the lives of celebrated artists who were also leading activists in the period, such as Laura Herford, Eliza Bridell-Fox and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Therefore, this study aims to explore not only Clayton’s approach to female artists within the specific domain of art, but also the incursions that they made into broad social and political issues regarding women. Finally, the presence in various biographies of the term “sisters” is particularly revealing in that Clayton, through her text, could be said to be assembling as many women as possible, not just artists, as a means of fighting for their rights together as sisters.

Palabras clave: Ellen Clayton; English Female Artists; women artists; women’s rights movement; Victorian period

Resumen

En su compilación biográfica sobre mujeres artistas English Female Artists (1876), Ellen Clayton documentó las vidas de numerosas mujeres talentosas y muy trabajadoras para reivindicar su participación en la historia del arte. Además, también aprovechó las biografías de estas artistas para abordar temas más generales, adhiriéndose así a una de las iniciativas más relevantes del período: el movimiento por los derechos de las mujeres, con propuestas que incluyen el progreso en la educación de las mujeres, su acceso a las academias de arte y la mejora de leyes sobre el matrimonio, la familia y el empleo. En particular, cabe reseñar las biografías de artistas célebres que también fueron activistas destacadas de la época, como Laura Herford, Eliza Bridell-Fox y Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Así, este estudio tiene como objetivo explorar no solo cómo enfoca Clayton el análisis de la artista en su propio ámbito específico, sino también las incursiones de la autora en temas sociales y políticos más generales relacionados con las mujeres. Finalmente, la presencia en varias biografías de un término significativo, “hermanas”, es particularmente revelador, ya que Clayton podría estar intentando reunir a través de este texto a la mayor cantidad posible de mujeres, no solo artistas, para luchar todas juntas como hermanas por sus derechos.

Keywords: Ellen Clayton; English Female Artists; mujeres artistas; movimiento por los derechos de las mujeres; época victoriana

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 37 llen Clayton published her two-volume biographical endeavors. However, the author took every opportunity to collection English Female Artists in 1876, and was able describe their activities “beyond the frame” of their work of to assemble a considerable number of women therein. art, in Deborah Cherry’s words (2000), and thus to highlight However, as she states in the initial paragraphs of the the difficulties that women artists faced in a repressive society, work, women painters “have left but faintly impressed and how they struggled for rights such as education, but also E footprints on the sands of time” (1876, I, 2)1. Thus, the for financial and marital equality, which would allow them to main purpose of her collection was to recover and work and thus provide for themselves and their families. Most celebrate both past and contemporary female artists. The former importantly, some of the artists in Clayton’s collection were also were few in number, and many had fallen into oblivion, principally renowned activists, such as Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827– as a result of the difficulties that they had experienced in their 1891), who was at the forefront of many of the feminist campaigns artistic endeavors, in that, as Clayton recurrently notes, art was of her time. not regarded an appropriate practice for them. Considering its title, the scope of Clayton’s collection is apparently narrow, in Ellen Clayton that it refers to English women artists in particular. However, she does not in fact restrict the women in her collection to those from Eleanor Creathorne Clayton (1834–1900), also known as Ellen England, but includes women from the whole of Great Britain, Clayton, was a writer but also an artist. For this reason she did and even from other nations, provided that they have spent a include her own biography in the text: “There is always a certain significant part of their lives in Britain and have made considerable personal interest attaching to the writer of a book; therefore a achievements in art or in the improvement of the circumstances slight account of this otherwise insignificant designer may be of women artists. Clayton’s English Female Artists is divided into acceptable to some readers” (1876, II, 324). Her own presence in two volumes, the first comprising biographies of women artists the collection allows us a perspective on aspects of her life which until the first half of the nineteenth century and the second might otherwise be difficult to find. She was born in Dublin, into devoted to the remainder of this century up to the publication a family of artists on her father’s side, but her family moved to of the text. The two volumes have different organizational London when she was seven years old. Her life, as described, was schemes. In the first, there are several sections describing the one of constant work, spent either writing or drawing designs of history of painting in Britain chronologically, followed by the various kinds. biographies of the most remarkable women painters from each period. Around twenty-five women artists are portrayed rather As a writer, Clayton cultivated various genres. She wrote “a series extensively, while over a hundred are just recorded in a few lines. of biographies for young ladies, to be issued in monthly parts” In the second volume, by contrast, 108 women’s biographies are (II, 326). In fact, apart from the compilation of women artists’ organized in alphabetical order in various chapters which deal lives examined here, she published biographical collections on with specific genres and the artists associated with these, such as noble women, women of the Reformation, opera singers and figure painters (36 artists), landscape painters (21), portrait and women warriors2. Throughout her life, Clayton wrote regularly miniature painters (8), painters of flowers, fruit and still life (17), for the periodical press, in particular London Society, Judy, and animal painters (6), humorous designers (4), decorative artists (2) several other illustrated periodicals. Yet she also contributed to and amateurs (14). periodicals with sketches: “humorous designs …, always drawing the subjects on the wood herself” (328). At the same time, she Interestingly, just a century later, in 1971, Linda Nochlin would published at least three novels and various books for children, choose a pointed title for her groundbreaking article on art history together with designs in water colours for comic calendars, from a feminist perspective: “Why have there not been great valentine and conversation cards. women artists?”, establishing a similar issue to the one addressed by Clayton. In the same manner and following the tenets of second- In light of these biographical details, Clayton, like many other wave feminism, equivalent recognition and recovery work was done women, found a place for her literary and artistic activity mainly by Sheila Rowbotham in Hidden from History. Rediscovering in the periodical press, an ever-growing market during this Women in History from the Seventeenth-Century to the Present period, as the astonishing figures found in Victorian directories (1974) and Dale Spender in Mothers of the Novel. 100 Good Women of periodicals demonstrate (Fraser 2012, 58). As this thriving and Writers before Jane Austen (1986). Thus, there is clearly a tradition rapidly evolving market also became more democratic, women of different female intellectuals and scholars, who have contributed were able to develop a professional career and make a living out of to the significant and necessary issue of recovering women from the it, yet they continued to suffer the condescension of male critics, past; a tradition which started with Christine de Pizan and her La or indeed their disdain (Fraser et al. 2003, 37). Clayton in particular Cité des Dames at the beginning of the fifteenth century and has benefited from her family’s involvement in the periodical business persisted until the present, as the extensive work of such scholars as and cultivated several journalistic genres, including illustrations, Gina Luria Walker proves (2013; 2018). as noted above. As she herself acknowledged, she was well connected within the world of publishing of the period, and more In the collection under study here, Clayton does not restrict importantly, she was able to forge a name for herself because herself to describing the limitations that women had to face in publishers often approached her for work. It was ultimately this terms of their artistic activities or careers, but also used their kind of privileged access that allowed Clayton to begin publishing biographies to problematize broader issues regarding women’s collections of women’s biographies. role and place in society. In this way she entered one of the most significant public debates of the day, one which the Victorians In terms of artistic fields, Clayton worked actively in those termed the “Woman Question”. In Clayton’s text, women from genres associated with the press industry. Yet the dedication of different historical periods stand shoulder to shoulder as a means English Female Artists to Elizabeth Thomson, Lady Butler (1846– of providing the reader with admirable instances of women’s 1933), one of the most remarkable painters of the period,

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 38 demonstrates that she was also acquainted with prestigious of certain specific groups of readers, plus the mass publication of artistic circles of her time. Lady Butler achieved fame as a painter books, was instrumental in the creation of special texts addressed of military battle scenes and in the dedication Clayton mentions to special audiences, namely women and children, and indeed her most celebrated painting, Calling the Roll after an Engagement, young girls. Even though women were mainly seen as readers of Crimea, better known as The Roll Call (1874), relating its title to fiction, this was considered a dangerous pastime, and the bourgeois the list of the women she would record in her text: “A roll call of educational agenda thus advised them to read other types of texts, honourable names” (I, i). such as biographies. According to medical and psychological theories of the period, young women were more predisposed Women, Art and Biography in the Second Half of the to identify themselves with the heroines of the texts they read; Nineteenth Century therefore, female biographies were deemed particularly inspiring (Flint 1993, 38). Indeed, collections of biographies like those by Women art critics and art historians of the nineteenth century Clayton often served as gift books or school prize books for girls have suffered the neglect of modern scholars; however, recent (Booth 2004, 29). Clayton herself explains in her autobiography studies, such as Clarke (2005), Losano (2008) and Fraser (2014), that her collections were used largely for this purpose (II, 327). have contributed to the field with rigorous and thoughtful work. They have demonstrated the existence of a notable number of Victorian society was governed by an ideology of separate spheres, women who handled diverse genres and who wrote extensively which meant that women’s sole role was at home, while men were about art. Those women, including Anna Jameson (1794–1860), in charge of public affairs. Women had to exert their influence Alice Meynell (1847–1922) and Ellen Clayton herself, had to read by providing the required attention and comfort for their family and assess a significant number of works on art history and current so that children could be raised and educated properly. However, critical art studies, not only from their country and in their observing the lives of Victorian women, and particularly those language, but also from the rest of Europe and in other languages, of female artists, it is evident that the boundaries between the in order to publish their own studies. As Walker has noted, they public and private spheres were fluid, with more and more responded, as other female historians had done before, to the women “constantly testing, negotiating and remaking” them absence of art histories which included female authorities with (Morgan 2007, 4). Moreover, analysing female intellectuals’ their own works (2018, 5). Indeed, the emergence of art history existing practices during this period, it is palpable that they as a new discipline in the nineteenth century worked in women’s were “keenly aware of the obstacles that intellectual misogyny favor, providing them with the possibility of a new professional perpetuated” and had to resort to innovative approaches (Walker activity, in that this branch of knowledge was still in the process 2018, 5). Thus, some women historians gave testimony to women’s of defining itself (Fraser 2014, 12). Moreover, in the Victorian agency in the public arena, while retaining the main assumptions period old notions of art started to collapse, and thus a notable of the ideology of the separate spheres. They recorded women’s number of women were able to enter a shifting art world, which values according to patriarchal beliefs, highlighting their nursing provoked a greater visibility of the woman artist, with Clayton’s abilities, compassion and fortitude, but also portraying them collection being one consequence of this emerging context. as public individuals capable of building a better future for themselves, as the women artists in Clayton’s collection illustrate. In the Victorian period, often referred to as the golden age of Conservative sectors, and particularly men, were concerned with biography, a great diversity of biographical texts were published women’s increasing presence in a variety of new spaces, including in a variety of formats, such as books, journals, encyclopedias, the arts and sciences, in that this might threaten the male status dictionaries, and specialized compendia, as well as accounts quo. As a consequence, critics and reviewers, who were mainly of the lives of diverse individuals, including eminent women, men, frequently adopted a patronizing attitude towards women warriors, doctors, singers and artists (Altick 1979, 77–78). In fact, writers and artists, considering their work to be of lesser quality, among the many biographical texts that emerged during this as opposed to those with masculine qualities, typified as including century, collections of biographies, and in particular collections penetration, strength, vigor and impartiality (Maitzen 1998, 12). of women’s biographies, became especially popular. According to Such an attitude is exhibited in a review published just after the Booth, between 1830 and 1940 more than nine hundred all-female publication of Clayton’s text in Art Journal: “Without any attempt collections of biographies were published in English (2004, 2). at Art-Criticism, Miss Clayton tells the stories, long or brief as The feminization of this genre was clear, in that it was a type of they may happen to be, of our Art sisters very pleasantly and very historical text cultivated mainly by women and aimed at women creditably both to them and to herself” (quoted in Fraser 2014, 23). (Spongberg 2002, 109–10). As the number of all-female galleries increased during the second half of the nineteenth century, The second half of the nineteenth century was also remarkable women’s lives started to be grouped together, not just because the in terms of the interest in art as reflected in the proliferation of women excelled in some specific way or another, but because they museums and art galleries. In this regard, Hoberman notes that in stood out in a particular domain, art in the present case. Hence, the middle of the century there were fewer than sixty museums in more and more texts of this type were available for a growing Britain, while in 1887 the numbers had grown to more than 240, number of women readers. Besides, commercial trends were thanks to new legislation which permitted the use of public funds crucial for the popularity of biographical writings, as they were for the creation of such institutions (2016, 111). Additionally, the conditioned by readers’ tastes, but also by the financial needs of audience for art and the interest in learning about art expanded printers and authors (Burstein 2004, 100). significantly, as did the appetite for knowledge about the lives of artists (Fraser 2014, 12). Thus, the public presence of women The collections published by Clayton were addressed primarily to artists increased and they became the “strongest source of female a female readership. During the final decades of the nineteenth social and creative potential” (Losano 2008, 1–2), which is clearly century, the women’s literacy rate reached almost 90 percent illustrated in Clayton’s compilation. (Lyons 1999, 313). The expansion of the reading public, particularly

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 39 Clayton’s Approach to Women Artists upon traces of much extolled work, but the difficulty is to discover what the silent, toiling student, seated tranquilly Two of the most influential women in the history of art, Angelika in front of her easel, is really like, even if we are told she Kauffmann (1741–1807) and Mary Moser (1744–1819), occupy a was one of the wittiest and most delightful of women. A relevant space in Clayton’s text. They were not English, but were dusty niche in a dry “Biographical Dictionary,” or “Memoirs “the only females ever considered worthy of walking in the ranks of Learned Ladies,” does not enable us to believe in them as of the Forty” (I, 298), that is, the forty artists who founded the realities. (I, 66–7) Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1768. Curiously enough, when the painter Johann Zoffany portrayed all the founding members of the Royal Academy in the painting The Academicians The layout and approach of the biographies in Clayton’s text of the Royal Academy (1771–1772), both Moser and Kauffmann were vary considerably depending on the subject, this presumably physically absent, appearing instead in two portraits on the right- being a consequence of the quantity of information available and hand wall in the picture. They were excluded from the painting gathered by her. In this regard, she repeatedly notes the scarcity of due to the presence of two nude men sitting for the artists; thus, data and materials about these women’s lives and her difficulties they are represented paradoxically as objects or models, rather in constructing interesting biographies for most of them. For than as agents of artistic works (Pollock 2003, 64). According to instance, she claims about one of these women that: “In the case Amanda Vickery, Zoffany’s renowned painting epitomizes “the of this gifted young artist, there is absolutely nothing in the way ambivalent recognition and conditional institutional support of story to tell, beyond the two facts, already so largely known, extended to female artists” (2016, n. pag.).

As noted above, Clayton mentions the scarcity of women painters The aim has been simply to show what woman has done, in Britain on the initial pages of her text, which might also be with the general conditions favorable or unfavorable to the motivation for including not only such foreign artists as her efforts […]. Should the perusal of my book inspire with Kauffmann and Moser, but also Susannah Hornebolt (1503–c.1554), courage and resolution any woman who aspires to overcome Lavinia Teerlinc (1520–1576), Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–c.1656) difficulties in the achievement of honorable independence, and Maria Varelst (1680–1744), to mention but a few. They usually or should it lead to a higher general respect for the powers visited and stayed in the British Isles in order to work for the of women and their destined position in the realm of Art, English monarchs, as the most admired schools of painting were my object will be accomplished. (1859, vi) on the Continent. Moreover, Clayton laments the fact that many of the artists, although English, are of foreign origin: “It is a little strange, and might perhaps be somewhat mortifying, to find that that she is passionately devoted to her art and perseveringly so few of our lady artists are of direct English descent” (II, 135). industrious” (II, 133). The arduous work of female painters is indeed commonplace in the text, and Clayton underlines the fact Early in her biographical compendium, Clayton affirms the that it is thanks to their constant effort that they have attained need to recover and dignify the figure of the woman artist. Later a well-earned place in public life, and also as professionals and as on, when recording the life of Anne Killigrew (1660–1685), she members of different academies. Still, there is a long way to go: articulates this idea in a more detailed way, mentioning art historians’ oblivion; but also, among other things, underlining Most of the women described were born into families of artists the silent and tranquil personality of most artists, as well as and learnt their skills from relatives, as was the case with Kauffman their habitual amateurism. However, the fundamental role of and Moser, whose fathers were also painters. Many women also patriarchal oppression in shaping women artists’ life choices is had the opportunity to meet other artists and received lessons also implicit: from family friends. In some cases, however, they were not allowed to study, or indeed it was considered unnecessary for a gifted girl Furthermore, nineteenth-century biographers, and particularly to learn or practice drawing because she was already able to do it women, when designing their texts, had one main purpose in mind: well enough. This was the case with Louise Jopling (1843–1933): to inspire readers by means of worthy women’s lives, following what “Although always fond of drawing, she was never permitted to Maitzen labels the “rhetoric of exemplarity” (1998, 48). Clayton cultivate her taste, her father considering it ‘a selfish amusement’” does not explicitly declare this, but Elizabeth Ellet, who had also collected biographies of women artists some years before, did formulate such an idea in the preface to her text: It cannot be denied that since the days of Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, and the female honorary members of the same period, the Academy has studiously It is certainly a remarkable fact that – with the exception ignored the existence of women artists, leaving them to of one or two queens, some leading literary women and work in the cold shade of utter neglect. Not even once has a actresses, and a few of the most distinguished heroines – helping hand been extended, not once has the most trifling the historians, the letter-writers, the biographers, even the reward been given for highest merit and industry … it is diarists, have been persistently mute regarding the sayings only by slow, laborious degrees that women are winning the and everyday doings of eminent Englishwomen. Scarcely right to enter the lists at all, and are then viewed with half a witty phrase, an illustrative incident, a trait beginning contemptuous indulgence. (I, 388–9) with the familiar “One day,” has been hastily jotted down. Of her female artists, the muse of English history has been curiously reticent. We feel as if in presence of a circle of (II, 107). Yet since painting was not a mere entertainment for wax models; we see the outward form, may chance to come the majority of these women, they achieved their goals

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 40 and were able to create admired works of art after much sense of humor, while women preferred to be admired for their perseverance and effort. The case of Frances Reynolds (1729– wit, this being an attribute well-regarded in social gatherings: 1807), Sir Joshua Reynolds’ sister, is particularly surprising, as was “Wit is fine and elegant: wit shines and scintillates in drawing- her brother’s attitude towards her artistic pursuits: rooms and boudoirs, but Humour may run the risk of stepping over the boundary lines of vulgarity” (319).

Frances was resolved to be a miniature painter, in spite of Women Artists and the Women’s Rights Movement the contemptuous opinion expressed of her attempts by her brother. Where, or from whom, she had picked up her The female artist has traditionally been a highly controversial figure, theories and practice of painting on ivory, or at what time in that women have been regarded, firstly, as the muse or model she had commenced her studies, it is impossible to say. In St. for artists, and not as the painter; secondly, as innately artistic, Martin’s Lane, however, she was surrounded by an artistic being particularly inclined to natural beauty and imagination, but atmosphere, and heard plenty of artistic talk. She copied her incapable of practicing high-art genres (Losano 2008, 2). Precisely brother’s pictures assiduously in water colours, but he never because of its controversial nature, the image of the woman artist gave her the slightest instruction, and hated to see her at constituted “a nodal point for discussion of numerous problems work. (I, 153) relating to women and social realm” (8). Clayton’s text is a clear instance of this and, in her numerous biographies, issues including women’s artistic education, art training, professionalization, Nevertheless, in Clayton’s opinion talent was also instrumental, their access to academies, and their financial situation, among and she quotes one of the greatest literary and art critics of the others, are discussed. More importantly, all these issues can be nineteenth century, William Hazlitt, in stating this idea: easily associated with more general problems which were arising in Victorian society regarding women: education, marriage and family, employment, friendship and networks, law, politics and The great secret of our curiosity respecting the lives of unionization. painters is, that they seem to be a different race of beings, and to speak a different language from ourselves […]. The greater The perseverance and effort that Clayton mentions as the central secret of this “curiosity” is surely the feeling that there is a attributes of women in their artistic life were also exhibited divine link of spiritual kinship between ourselves and the by some of them when defending women’s rights. Given their creator of a noble or beautiful painting. It is a friend, and no common interests, various women artists participated in similar stranger, who has painted the “Ecce Homo”, “The Gevartius”, organizations and projects, and attended the same schools, “The Last Supper”, “The Shepherd’s Chief Mourner”, “The academies and exhibitions. Clayton herself reveals how she became Infant Samuel”, “The Old Temeraire”. (II, 88) acquainted with other female artists while visiting the National Gallery and the British Museum as a student (II, 325–6). This led to the emergence of public and private networks and associations The fruit of these women’s hard work and talent is seen in the lists of women based on art, which would be instrumental for the of their paintings – some of which are very long – that Clayton development of feminism in the second half of the nineteenth includes at the end of each biography. Furthermore, women century (Cherry 2000, 21–4; Morgan 2007, 5, 8). At this moment, painters cultivated a vast array of genres, as the different sections women began a concerted struggle against the rules imposed on of the second part of the compendium illustrate; however, they them by patriarchal society, and indeed Clayton gave voice to were particularly attracted to landscape and still-life painting. this oppressive situation in her text, alluding to “The prejudice As Clayton observes, nature painting was required in private against women of any position in society taking any profession teaching and many girls and young women began by painting but the elegant one of gentlewomen” (II, 152). This made yet more landscapes and elements from nature, such as flowers and plants necessary the alliance of women to face their plight: (191); on the other hand, a genre such as animal painting was not a favored area among women (303), perhaps again due to the social preconception about women’s inclination toward ornamental art. The moment she dares to cross that Rubicon which separates so widely the professional artist from the Concerning figure painters, studying the nude was particularly fashionable amateur, she forgets, more or less, her social difficult for women, as it required attending art academies position, and is thenceforth barely tolerated, if not and schools, and also because it was not considered decent and altogether cut by society as an inevitable consequence appropriate for women (Nochlin 1988, 159; Pollock 2003, 62). of having set its law at defiance, and outraged its time- Even though the second half of the nineteenth century brought honoured conventionalities. All the fame in the world could about great advancement, Clayton notes in one of the biographies not reconcile a family to the possession or infliction of such that this widespread prejudice was still effective in the 1860s: a member. (153) “this branch of art [figure painting] was much against her father’s inclination – he shared the common prejudice against such study for a woman” (II, 15). In order to paint human figures, Clayton In English Female Artists, Clayton refers with the above words to her observes that some women had to gather in private houses and homeland, Ireland, as a distinctive culture, where those prejudices arrange a kind of clandestine school in which the model could sit against women were even harsher. Indeed, although being part undressed for them (83). The author also notes that women did not of the British Empire at that moment, in Ireland, together with generally cultivate the genre that she herself most often practiced: family and education, religion was another key element that humorous sketches. The reason, in her opinion, was once again worked against women’s active participation in public life. The related to gender differences, as men were thought to possess a ideology of separate spheres was constantly preached

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 41 from the pulpit by both the Catholic and Protestant Lord Lyndhurst, in a speech to the Royal Academy dinner, clergy. It was a common assumption until recently, for instance, spoke of the advantages offered by the Academy Schools that women’s rights were better protected by keeping them at to ‘all her Majesty’s subjects’. Miss Herford thereupon home, since working women might be a threat to the family addressed a letter to him, in which she pointed out the and thus to the interests of both men and women (Earner-Byrne anomaly that half of her Majesty’s subjects, those namely and Urquhart 2017, 313, 316). However, in Clayton’s subsequent of her Majesty’s own sex, were entirely excluded from the collection of biographies, which grouped women warriors under schools. (II, 3–4) the title Female Warriors. Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era (1879), she explored in greater depth the prejudice against active and assertive women, Clayton subsequently mentions a well-known episode in which as an issue that affected all women, irrespective of their origins: Herford sent a drawing to the Academy signed only with her initials, and it was admitted. When her real name and sex were unveiled, Herford was nonetheless given permission to study. Popular Prejudice, having decided that woman is a poor, Hence, “this may be considered the first important opening to weak creature, credulous, easily influenced, holds that she women to share in the art educational privileges accorded to is of necessity timid; that if she were allowed as much as a their brothers” (84). Once women obtained permission to enter voice in the government of her native country, she would art schools and academies, they participated enthusiastically, as stand appalled if war were even hinted at. If it be proved by Clayton’s text clearly illustrates. hard facts that woman is not a poor, weak creature, then she must be reprimanded as being masculine. To brand a woman Clayton also exalts the role of a distinguished woman painter, masculine, is supposed to be quite sufficient to drive her Bodichon, who devoted her life “to right the wrongs under cowering back to her broidery-frame and her lute. (I, 3) which so many helpless sisters suffer” (167). She was in fact the promoter of the most relevant campaigns for women’s rights in the period. Along with other influential women – the writers Clayton and many women like her did not fear popular prejudice Anna Jameson, Mary Howitt, Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth and dared to pursue their desire to become trained artists, even Barrett Browning, among others –, she presented a petition in professional ones. Nevertheless, family and domestic duties were the House of Lords to guarantee that women could keep their an additional burden for women artists, and Clayton mentions own property and money in unhappy marriages (168). Her marriage as a general cause for interrupting or even giving up an efforts also addressed the improvement of the education of artistic career (II, 34). Moreover, motherhood was particularly girls from the low classes, in that she offered them instruction critical, and Clayton expressed it by means of a very pertinent at a modest price (169–70). Bodichon’s lifelong concern for claim: “Babies, that truly feminine impediment” (108). women’s education is also illustrated in her participation in the foundation of Girton College, Cambridge, “the first institution As observed above, receiving tuition was vital in order to achieve of the kind opened in England where women could obtain the professional status in the arts. Interestingly, one of the most same educational advantages offered to men at universities” curious locations in which women could be instructed in artistic (173). In Clayton’s biography of Bodichon, her activities as a practices was that provided by Eliza Bridell-Fox (1824–1903), writer are also mentioned, as she wrote “papers and pamphlets whom Clayton describes as “not only an artist, but one who takes on the disabilities of women”, as well as contributions to the an enthusiastic interest in the progress of those who study art, Englishwoman’s Magazine, one of the first magazines exclusively more especially in female students. By her vigorous efforts to free devoted to women’s issues, which was “printed and supported” the hard and laborious way, she has done much to aid the upward by her (175). pilgrimage of girls now studying” (II, 80–1). Indeed, Bodichon’s publications addressed her main concerns regarding women’s circumstances, with titles such as A She … started an evening class for ladies, conducted on co- Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws operative principles, for the practice of drawing from life Concerning Women (1854), in which she graphically described […]. This class Miss Fox commenced for her own practice the adverse legal consequences of marriage for women: “she and benefit as much as for that of others, and the first year loses her separate existence, and is merged in that of her she shared with the rest of the class the needful expenses, husband” (1854, 13). In 1857 she published an essay entitled her father kindly lending a large room – his library – for the Women and Work (1857) in order to vindicate women’s right meetings. (83) to work and, years later, a brief treatise on women’s suffrage, Reasons of the Enfranchisement of Women (1866). In the latter, Bodichon introduced the inventory of powerful reasons to These classes run by Fox were frequented by several female justify her position with these words: artists whose biographies are recorded by Clayton, in particular Laura Herford (1831–1870) and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, who, apart from being skilled artists, were leading activists That a respectable, orderly, independent body in the state in the women’s rights movement (Cherry 2000, 24). As artists should have no voice, and no influence recognized by the themselves, one of their main concerns was to ensure women’s law, in the election of the representatives of the people, access to art academies. Clayton mentions Laura Herford as while they are otherwise acknowledged as responsible the woman to whom all female students of art owed the most, citizens, are eligible for many public offices, and required and narrates a curious episode during the initial steps of her to pay all taxes, is an anomaly which seems to require some own struggle: explanation. (1866, 2)

OCEÁNIDE | 12_2020 42 By the time Clayton’s text was published, the women’s a biographer to render “interesting”. No pathos throws suffrage movement had begun in Britain and a women’s suffrage its romantic shadow over her – no gay humour or bright petition had already been presented in Parliament (1866), signed originality lights up her sober figure as she stands before among others by Bodichon herself. Yet Clayton does not mention her easel. The most remarkable event is some new picture this remarkable historical event. Nevertheless, she was acquainted begun or “finish”. The “dearest heart” of her husband, the with the suffrage movement and with some of the women who admired mother of her “boys” and “daughter Mall”, the centre were involved in it, as some years later, when she published her of a large, appreciative circle of friends, she is only unlike last biographical collection on women warriors, she dedicated thousands of other contented English wives and mothers in the text to Madame Ronniger (1879, vii). Clayton shared her her distinguishing artistic talent. (I, 51) artistic interests with Ronniger, in that the latter was both an artist and the editor of the journal Aesthetic Review and Art Observer; however, Ronniger was also a well-known suffragette, Conclusion who participated assiduously in the movement by giving lectures on women’s suffrage throughout the country during the 1870s In her biographical collection English Female Artists, Clayton (Crawford 1999, 606–7). presented a notable group of women artists, as well as information about them, creating a kind of mosaic in which multiple women’s Clayton, though, decided not to go further, and did not integrate biographies were disposed. Undoubtedly, these women’s artistic such revolutionary ideas as women’s right to vote into her gallery abilities merited description, and Clayton tried her best to do of women artists. The intended audience of the text might usefully so, even when little material was available. Yet more important, be taken into consideration here, since, as already mentioned, texts perhaps, is the way in which the author stresses the many obstacles of this type were often used as gift books for girls, and parents that women had to overcome, these provoked chiefly by reasons of and school boards would have considered the inclusion of such gender, and affecting not only women’s education and their access information as excessively radical. Financial reasons should also be to art schools and academies, but also their difficulties in other taken into account, in the sense that Clayton was commissioned critical aspects of their lives. As occurred in early compendia of by a printing manager to write the book, due to the increasing women’s biographies, including hagiographies, catalogues and popularity of the genre and hence with an eye on the substantial defenses of women, in which women were seen to constantly suffer profits that such a book might make. Most importantly, despite adverse circumstances with resilience, Clayton tries to foster Clayton’s general support for the women’s rights movement in empathy among her readership, which, being overwhelmingly the text, certain biographies include comments and remarks that female, was itself the victim of patriarchal society and its rules. It corroborate the fact that gender differences were deeply rooted is remarkable that on occasions the author refers to the group of in Victorian society. On the one hand, when describing the artists she reviews as “artistic sisters” (I, 72; II, 135), “sister artists” artistic works of some of the women, the author notes attributes (146), “professional sisters” (I, 358), and even “a sisterhood of such as tenderness, charm and delicacy, which might be seen artists” (40). She thus expresses the close ties by which all these as references to so-called “feminine” qualities in a patriarchal women are bonded, creating the notion of a sisterhood in which society, and thus suggesting a conscious or unconscious bias in Clayton includes herself, in that her own life is also a piece in this her artistic assessment. On the other hand, Clayton effusively large biographical mosaic. Furthermore, in Clayton’s opinion, they praises the women she portrays in terms of their artistic skills and belong to a larger group constituted by “sisters of the pen” and achievements, but it should also be noted that occasionally she “of the buskin” (2). Ultimately, Clayton, along with many other applauds their domestic accomplishments as exemplary qualities, female biographers of this period, uses the figures of remarkable as the sources she uses did. This paragraph about the life of Mary women, in this case artists, to denounce the situation of women Beale (1633–1699) is particularly illustrative: and to call for their rights. Henceforth, inspired by the examples of the women portrayed in this collection, female readers could join an actual or imagined community of women, all of them One of those happy lives, hers, full of sweetness and dignity being sisters with artistic aspirations, yet also with significant and matronly purity, which it is next to impossible for social and political responsibilities.

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Notes

1 All subsequent quotations from Clayton’s English Female Artists refer to this edition.

2 On the topic of women warriors’ biographies, see Lasa Álvarez (2019).

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